Claim: Jacques Attali predicted a pandemic scare to euthanise the useless in 2006
Jacques Attali almost certainly never said this; the quote was invented in 2021.
MISATTRIBUTED QUOTE
There is a misattributed quote circulating on the internet that is supposedly from Brief History of the Future, a book written by the French intellectual, Jacques Attali, published in 2006, and predicts the pandemic. Other sources claim he said it in an interview with Michel Salomon in the 1981 book of interviews with famous people, Avenir de la vie.
There is no evidence he ever said the quote (below) in either place, although his views on euthanasia quoted in the Avenir de la vie interview do seem to have led people to believe he was advocating forced euthanasia for the old in the 1980s.
Here is the false quote in English. It appears to have started circulating in early 2021:
In the future, it will be a question of finding a way to reduce the population. We will start with the old man because once he is over 60-65 years old, man lives longer than he produces, and it costs society dearly.
Then the weak and then the useless who do not contribute anything to society because there will be more and more, and especially, finally the stupid.
Euthanasia is directed at these groups; euthanasia must be an essential instrument of our future societies in all cases.
Of course, we will not be able to execute people or organize camps. We will get rid of them by making them believe that it is for their own good.
Too large a population, and for the most part unnecessary, is something economically too expensive. Socially, it is also much better for the human-machine to stop abruptly rather than gradually deteriorate.
We won’t be able to pass intelligence tests on millions and millions of people, you can imagine!
We will find something or cause it; a pandemic that targets certain people, a real economic crisis or not, a virus that will affect the old or the elderly; it does not matter. The weak and the fearful will succumb.
The stupid will believe it and ask to be treated. We will have taken care of having planned the treatment, a treatment that will be the solution.
The selection of idiots will therefore be done by itself: they will go to the slaughterhouse alone
Jacques Attali, author of “A Brief History of the Future”, was a prominent French writer, economic theorist and civil servant. He was an advisor to President François Mitterrand from 1981 to 1991 and founded the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1989. He was instrumental in getting the European leaders to accept a meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. He is a major political figure.
You can look through Brief History of the Future yourself in this archive.org link, the quote is not there. You can also find page scans of the interview with Michel Salomon in the book of interviews with famous people, Avenir de la vie (by clicking the link you can see the scan of the book.) It is not there either.
Assuming the archive.org scan is a correct representation of the book, and the scan of the 1981 Avenir de la vie Jacques Attali interview is also correct, then it is an inaccurate quote.
In Avenir de la vie he actually does discuss euthanasia, though, in a slightly ambiguous way, which did in fact lead to some people apparently misunderstanding his views.
- Euthanasia will be one of the essential instruments of our future societies…. In a socialist logic, to begin with, the problem is posed as follows: the socialist logic is freedom and fundamental freedom is suicide; consequently, the right to direct or indirect suicide is therefore an absolute value in this type of society…in your future society it will make it possible to eliminate life when it is too unbearable, charity will be economically too costly, (so euthanasia) will see the light of day and will be ordered.
And a small part of the quote about man living longer than 65 is genuine. Here it is in French.
Mais dès qu'on dépasse 60/65 ans, l'homme vit plus longtemps qu'il ne produit et il coûte alors cher à la société.
In English here is the broader context of the quote, which I think is slightly ambiguous, actually, and could be taken to be recommending euthanasia:
First of all, I believe that in the very logic of the industrial system in which we find ourselves, the lengthening of the duration of life is no longer a logical goal. Why ? Because as long as it was to extend life expectancy at the end of reaching the maximum threshold of the profitability of the human machine, in terms of work, it was perfect. But as soon as we exceed 60/65 years, the man lives longer than he produces and then costs society dearly. Hence I believe that in the very logic of industrial society, the objective will no longer be to lengthen the duration of life, but to ensure that even within a period of determined life, man lives as well as possible, but in such away that health care costs will be as low as possible in terms of costs for the community. Then a new one (objective) appears in the life expectancy criterion: that of the value of a system of health, a function not of the extension of life expectancy but of the number of years without disease and particularly without hospitalization. Indeed from the point of view of society, it is preferable that the human machine stop abruptly rather that it does not deteriorate gradually. This is perfectly clear if we remember that two-thirds of health expenditures are concentrated in the last months of life.
The rumour that he advocates for euthanasia has been going for a long time, and must have been quite distressing for him, because in the 1980s he mounted a lawsuit against people claiming that he had been advocating for euthanasia in the above quoted article. After an initial loss in a lower court he won the lawsuit on appeal.
Mr. JACQUES ATTALI WINS IN APPEAL HIS DEFAMATION TRIAL - PARIS 18 JAN
- January 18, 1984 6:24 p.m.
Integration Archives 2018
-AFP
- 00064197
PARIS The Paris Court Of Appeal reversed the judgment of the 17th Correctional Chamber, which on the 22 june had dismissed the lawsuit of M. Jacques Attali, and awards victory to the Advisor Of The President Of The Republic in his defamation trial against Drs Bernard Savy And Jean Goreux, and Mrs Marie-Helene Ugolin, President of the “National Social Insurances Union Association"
Mr. Attali had started this legal action to protest against a "campaign" started in January 1982 in the "Medico-Social Profiles" Review, as well as a leaflet implicating him. According to M. Attali, this campaign was for the object of leading people to believe that he was a supporter of "euthanasia of the old people" and "genocide of the old people". The offending articles were based on a passage from a book entitled "The Future Of Life", reporting an interview with M Attali with the author of the book, M. Michel Salomon, about the statistical extension of life.
THE FALSE QUOTATION IN FRENCH
Regardless of what Jacques Atalli’s views on euthanasia might or might not be, the quote that has been circulating is almost certainly false.
This is the false quote in French.
“A l’avenir il s’agira de trouver un moyen de réduire la population. Nous commencerons par les vieux, car dès qu’il dépasse 60-65 ans l’homme vit plus longtemps qu’il ne produit et il coûte cher à la société. Ensuite les faibles puis les inutiles qui n’apportent rien à la société car il y en aura de plus en plus, et surtout enfin les plus stupides.
Une euthanasie ciblant ces groupes ; l’euthanasie devra être un instrument essentiel de nos sociétés futures, dans tous les cas de figure. On ne pourra bien sûr par exécuter les gens ou faire des camps. Nous nous en débarrasserons en leur faisant croire que c’est pour leur bien. La population trop nombreuse, et pour la plupart inutile, c’est quelque chose d’économiquement trop coûteux.
Sociétalement, il est également bien préférable que la machine humaine s’arrête brutalement plutôt qu’elle ne se détériore progressivement. On ne pourra pas non plus faire passer des tests d’intelligence à des millions et des millions de gens, vous pensez bien !
Nous trouverons quelque chose ou le provoquerons, une pandémie qui cible certaines personnes, une crise économique réelle ou pas, un virus qui touchera les vieux ou les gros, peu importe, les faibles y succomberont, les peureux et les stupides y croiront et demanderont à être traités.
Nous aurons pris soin d’avoir prévu le traitement, un traitement qui sera la solution. La sélection des idiots se fera ainsi toute seule : ils iront d’eux-mêmes à l’abattoir.”
The blog post pictured below, linked here , from 11 April 2021, is one of the earliest mentions of the false quote that I can find on the internet, and uniquely seems to be a kind of riff on the original text, which is in bold; it has this disclaimer in very small writing at the top, saying the text was inspired by him, not written by him:
Avertissement : le texte ci-dessous n'a pas été écrit par Jacques Attali mais s'inspire de son livre "L'avenir de la vie".
Les phrases qui suivent sont des citations extraites du livre " L'avenir de la vie" avec indication de la page.
TRANSLATION:
Warning: the text below was not written by Jacques Attali but is inspired by his book "The future of life".
The following sentences are quotations taken from the book "The future of life" with indication of the page.
So I think this blog post is probably a kind of commentary on the false quote, but I can’t help wondering if it is almost early enough to have been the source:
The translations were done with a lot of help from google translate.